Teddy | Page 7

name?" said Jupp to her softly in the interlude, while scrunching footsteps could be heard approaching them, although no one yet could be perceived through the rifts of snow. "I think it the prettiest girl's name in the world!"
"Go 'long!" cried she again; but she sidled up to him and held on to his arm once more as she spoke, the blasts of the storm at the moment being especially boisterous.
"Is that you, Mary?" repeated the voice in front, now much nearer, her answer not having been heard apparently, on account of the wind blowing from the speaker towards them.
"Yes, sir," she screamed out. "I've found Master Teddy, and he's all right."
She was heard this time.
"Thank God!" returned the voice in trembling accents, nearer still; and then a thin, haggard, careworn-looking man in clergyman's dress rushed up to them.
He was quite breathless, and his face pale with emotion.
"Padie! Padie!" exclaimed the mite, raising himself up on Jupp's shoulder and stretching out one of his little hands to the new-comer while the other grasped the kitten. "I'se turn back, I'se turn back to oo!"
"My boy, my little lamb! God be praised for his mercy!" cried the other; and the next instant Teddy was locked in his father's arms in a close embrace, kitten and all.
"Say, Miss Mary," whispered Jupp, taking advantage of the opportunity while Mr Vernon's back was turned.
"What?" she asked, looking up into his face demurely.
"This ought to be passed round."
"Go 'long!" she replied; but, she didn't budge an inch when Jupp put his arm round her, and nobody knows what happened before Mr Vernon had composed himself and turned round again!
CHAPTER THREE.
AT THE VICARAGE.
Three little girls were flattening their respective little noses against the panes of glass as they stood by one of the low French windows of the old red brick house at the corner of the lane commanding the approach from the village; and three little pairs of eager eyes, now big with expectation, were peering anxiously across the snow-covered lawn through the gathering evening gloom towards the entrance gate beyond--the only gap in the thick and well-nigh impenetrable laurel hedge, some six feet high and evenly cropped all round at the top and square at the sides, which encircled the vicarage garden, shutting it in with a wall of greenery from the curious ken of all passers-by without.
With eager attention the little girls were watching to see who would be the first of the trio to herald the return of the missing Master Teddy and those who had gone forth in search of him; but, really, seekers and sought alike had been so long absent that it seemed as if they were all lost together and never coming back!
The little girls were weary almost of waiting, and being thus kept in suspense with hope deferred.
Besides that, they were overcome with a sense of loneliness and desertion, everyone in the house but old Molly the cook and themselves having started off early in the afternoon in different directions in quest of the truant Teddy; so, as the time flew by and day drew to a close, without a sight or sound in the distance to cheer their drooping spirits, their little hearts grew heavy within them.
Presently, too, their whilom bright eyes got so dimmed with unshed tears which would well up, that they were unable to see clearly had there been anything or anyone for them to see; while their little putty noses, when they removed them occasionally from close contact with the glass, bore a suspiciously red appearance that was not entirely due to previous pressure against the window panes.
Nor were their surroundings of a sufficiently enlivening character to banish the little maidens' despondency, the fire in the drawing-room grate having died out long since from inattention, making them feel cold and comfortless, and it had got so dark within that they could not distinguish the various articles of furniture, even papa's armchair in the chimney-corner; while, outside, in the gloaming, the snow-flakes were falling slowly and steadily from a leaden-hued sky overhead.
The only thing breaking the stillness of the murky air was the melancholy "Chirp, churp! chirp, churp" uttered at intervals by some belated sparrow who had not gone to bed in good time like all sensible bird-folk, and whose plaintive chirp was all the more aggravating from its monotonous repetition.
"I'm sore sumtin d'eadfill's happened," whimpered little Cissy, the youngest of the three watchers, after a long silence between them. "Pa sood have been back hours and hours and hours ago."
"Nonsense, Cissy!" said Miss Conny, her elder sister, who by virtue of her seniority and the fact of her having reached the mature age of ten was rather prone to giving herself certain matronly airs of superiority over the others, which they put up